The present invention relates generally to the field of inquiry distribution and processing. More particularly, the invention provides a method and system for distributing inquiries to appropriate agents. Merely by way of example, the method and system have been applied to a contact center. It would be recognized that the invention can be applied to other circumstances that need inquiry processing.
Conventional contact centers or call centers provide customers with access to various services and related information. For example, the services include retrieving bank account balances and credit card payments, and providing technical support. Typically, the customers begin their contacts with the call centers by dialing specific telephone numbers that are answered by computers of corresponding call centers. The computers typically prompt the customers for additional information, such as credit card numbers, technical support numbers or social security numbers. Subsequently, the computers offer the customers various options to proceed. For example, the customers may press “1” for payments, “2” for balances, and “0” for other inquiries. For other inquiries, the calls are typically transferred to agents who should be provided the information that the customers already provided to the computers.
The above description provides an example of a “push” implementation where the customer data and the telephone calls are pushed to the agents. Unfortunately, “pushing” the customer data with the telephone calls is a complex process. The complexity increases as the number of agents increases, and the difficulty is further compounded by geographical separation of agents or groups of agents. For example, if the agents are not ready or if their computers are not ready to receive the “pushed” information, the customer information is usually lost and needs to be re-entered by agents. Furthermore, the telephone calls may be disconnected. In addition, tracking availability of the agents and their skill sets is highly complex and dynamic.
Hence it is desirable to improve techniques of inquiry distribution and processing.